Re-Generation

Ryan Gosling narrates this engrossing film about social activism, the forces that galvanized the Occupy movement, and how a new generation of young people is coming to terms with a rapidly changing world. The film skillfully weaves commentary from some of the country's leading political and social analysts with personal observations from a collective of young musicians, a tight-knit group of suburban high-school students, and a young conservative family, providing a nuanced look at the myriad challenges facing the next generation of Americans. The result is as personal as it is political, as much a portrait of the contemporary political scene as of a generation of young people finding their way in uncertain times. Features Noam Chomsky, the late Howard Zinn, Adbusters' Kalle Lasn, Andrew Bacevich, Amy Goodman, Talib Kweli, Sut Jhally, and music from STS9. A film by Phillip Montgomery. Year of Production: 2012 (Shown at LBC Friday)

Dirt: The Movie

. . . Dirt! The Movie was inspired by Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by William Bryant Logan, a book whose title pretty much describes the movie's narrative course in explaining how the dirt we use for good or ill, whether in the service of spoilage or manipulation, is a much more delicate and essential bio-resource than many of us thought. There's a lot of information about dirt that gets tossed about, and it's bagged together with some lovely animation segments that are explanatory or allegorical. . . . We visit locations from Africa and India, to Los Angeles, Brazil, and the South Bronx. The gist is to show the bad ways we can and are destroying dirt, from strip-mining and mountaintop removal, to deforestation and continuing the agri-killing practice of monoculture--growing only one crop over and over again across huge areas of land (dirt). . . . A couple in Brazil talk about the correlation between human degradation and environmental degradation, which the film glaringly documents in other places like India, where farmer suicides occur regularly because the dirt is going away. . . . excerpted from review by Ted Fry. Year of production: 2009. (To be shown at LBC on Wednesday and Thursday).

A Fierce Green Fire

FIERCE GREEN FIRE: The Battle for a Living Planet is the first big-picture exploration of the environmental movement – grassroots and global activism spanning fifty years from conservation to climate change. Directed and written by Mark Kitchell, Academy Award-nominated director of Berkeley in the Sixties, and narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep, the film premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2012, has won acclaim at festivals around the world, and in 2013 begins theatrical release as well as educational distribution and use by environmental groups and grassroots activists. Inspired by the book of the same name by Philip Shabecoff and informed by advisors like Edward O. Wilson, A FIERCE GREEN FIRE chronicles the largest movement of the 20th century and one of the keys to the 21st. It brings together all the major parts of environmentalism and connects them. It focuses on activism, people fighting to save their homes, their lives, the future – and succeeding against all odds. To be shown at LBC on Monday and Tuesday.

Please try to make it to one or more of these films, which will also be shown at Lower Bucks Campus that week (see previous mybucks posting for schedule). Encourage student attendance; consider building extra-credit assignments around the environmental and activism themes featured.